1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to strings for musical instruments, and particularly to strings for musical instruments such as strings for guitars and the like that may be contaminated along their length and/or may cause undue finger discomfort when played.
2. Description of Related Art
There are a multitude of different types of musical strings employed today, each performing a different function. A typical guitar employs a straight (non-wound) string (such as “gut,” metal, or synthetic polymer (e.g., those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,339,499 and 4,382,358)) for higher pitched notes, and wound metal or polymer strings (usually a wrapped metal or polymer winding over a core of metal, nylon or similar material) for lower pitched notes. Wound strings rely on the additional string mass per unit length supplied by the spiral wrap of the wound string to supply lower pitched notes at an acceptable string tension. Existing string designs have been refined over many years to provide excellent musical tones, but the strings continue to be limited in many respects.
There is a large variety of stringed musical instruments employed today that require human contact along at least a portion of the strings, such as in the fingering and plucking of guitar strings in order to be played. While straight gage strings can be easily wiped of dirt and oil after use, wound strings tend to become contaminated with dirt, skin oils, and perspiration after even a few hours of playing. It is believed that dirt and other contaminants infiltrate windings of the string causing the windings to have limited motion. After a relatively short period of time, a typical wound string will become musically “dead”, apparently due to the build-up of this contamination. Presently wound strings that lose their tonal qualities must be removed from the instrument and either cleaned or replaced. This process is burdensome, time consuming, and expensive for musicians who play frequently and care about tonal quality.
Another problem encountered with strings requiring fingering along a fingering board (e.g., a guitar fret board) is that a substantial amount of pressure must often be applied by the musician against the fingering board in order to produce different musical notes. This can be discouraging for beginning music students. Accomplished musicians normally develop extensive calluses on their fingers from years of playing their instruments. Despite such calluses, the pressure and friction generated by playing the instruments tends to be one of the primary causes of frustration and fatigue or injury for many musicians.
Still another problem with conventional strings, and particularly conventional wound strings, is that the action of fingering quickly across the strings often generates unwanted noises. For instance, it is common to hear a “squeak” from guitar wound strings as a musician fingers rapidly across a fret board or finger board. In order to avoid such squeaks, the musician must make a concerted effort to completely separate his or her fingers from the strings when repositioning on the fret or finger board. This repositioning action slows the musician's note changes and further increases fatigue.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional classical guitar 10. Conventional classical guitars include a “fret” or “fingering board” 12, across which multiple strings, 14a, 14b, 14c, 16a, 16b, and 16c, are strung and against which the strings are pressed to form different notes as the strings are picked or plucked. A typical classical guitar includes three relatively “high” note (or “treble”) strings, 14a, 14b, 14c, and three relatively “low” note (or “bass”) strings, 16a, 16b, 16c. High note strings 14 are generally formed from a straight “non-wound” material, such as gut or synthetic material. In order to achieve significantly lower notes without increasing the length of the string or unduly increasing its thickness, bass strings 16 generally employ a wound string construction.
The form of a typical wound bass string 16 can be seen inside the string 18 illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 3. As is shown, wound bass strings 16 employ a core 20 and a winding wrapped repeatedly around the core 20. The winding is held in place around the core by tension and the anchoring of it at its ends.
When a conventional wound bass string 16 is played for a period of time, it tends to lose its tonal quality due to “contamination” of the string. It is believed that proper tonal quality of a wound bass string 16 is dependent upon allowing movement between individual wraps 24a, 24b, 24c, etc., of the winding during play. Contamination in the form of dirt, oil, sweat, etc., tends to become entrapped within the winding, causing limited motion of the individual wraps 24. This is a particular problem on a finger board of an instrument because of the constant handling of the strings in that area. As a result, after a relatively short period of play, wound bass strings begin to diminish in tonal quality. Professional musicians who care about tonal quality are then often required to remove and replace or clean the wound bass strings on a regular basis to maintain proper sound.
It would seem that some of these problems could be addressed if the strings could be coated with some substance to avoid contamination of the wound string windings and/or to provide some cushioning or smooth, non-squeak, cover for the strings. For example, Fender Corporation offers a bass guitar string that employs a spiral wrap of a flat, stiff polymer tape (such as nylon) around the wound string. The polymer tape is not adhered to the wound string and does not conform to the underlying bass string, but, instead, is held in place merely by tightly helically wrapping the stiff flat tape around the bass string and holding the tape from unwinding with an outer-wrapping of thread at each end of the guitar string. The polymer tape is wrapped with its side edges abutting without overlap of or adhesion to adjacent tape wraps.
While Fender Corporation's use of a stiff tape wrap may help reduce some contamination problems or may make the string somewhat more comfortable to play (neither of which results appears to be claimed or established by Fender), the Fender bass guitar string has a distinctly “dead” sound when played. The relatively heavy and stiff wrapping is believed to limit the amount and duration of vibration of the string, particularly at higher harmonic or overtone frequencies, muffling or “deadening” its sound. As a result of the use of such a non-deformable covering, the string is unsuitable for most guitar applications where a conventional “bright” or “lively” guitar sound is sought.
Moreover, a more recent improved musical instrument string is disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,528,709; 6,248,942; 5,907,113; 5,883,319; and 5,801,319 to Hebestreit et al. These patents disclose various wound strings, such as a string having a center core and a spiral winding used to produce lower notes, and a variety of polymer covers or coatings applied around or to the wound string. FIGS. 2 and 3 illustrate a representative wound string disclosed by Hebestreit et al. As can be seen polymer cover 26 comprises a polymer material helically wrapped about the windings of the string. The preferred cover comprises porous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) in the form of one or more tapes, sheets, or tubes that enwrap the wound string and protect the wound string from contamination. The cover is selected and applied so as not to significantly degrade the normal sound of the musical instrument. Thus, it is disclosed that the cover is substantially a non-dampening cover. Commercially available products produced according to the teachings of these patents are available from W. L. Gore and Associates, Inc., under the trademark ELIXIR® strings. ELIXIR® strings have overcome the above problems (e.g., string contamination, squeaking noise, etc.), while assuring exceptional tonal quality.
It is well known that guitar strings are designed specifically for at least four general types of guitars: acoustic guitars; electric guitars; bass guitars; and classical guitars. Guitar strings for acoustic and electric guitars include strings for higher pitched notes, generally made from steel, and strings for lower pitched notes, including a steel core and a metal winding (e.g., brass, etc.) around the steel core to produce the desired lower pitched sound (hereinafter referred to as “wound strings”). Bass guitars generally include only wound strings comprising a steel core and metal winding construction. Classical guitars include strings for higher pitched notes, made from animal intestines (hereinafter “gut”) or a synthetic resin material such as polyamide 6, polyamide 6, 6, copolymers thereof, or more recently introduced, polyetheretherketone (PEEK) (hereinafter collectively referred to as “synthetic”). Wound strings for classical guitars generally include a gut or synthetic core (which can be a multifilament construction) including a metal winding around the core to produce the desired lower pitch sound, and have many of the same problems as wound strings which include a steel core (e.g., contamination, unwanted squeaking noise, etc.). Although musical instrument strings comprising gut or synthetic core material are typically used for classical guitars, such strings may find use in other musical instruments. Thus, as used herein and in the claims “classical guitar strings” includes any musical instrument string having gut or synthetic material as the core.
Due to the relatively lower melting temperature of the core material used in many classical guitar strings, some of the high-temperature processes for attaching the cover material to the string taught by Hebestreit et al. may be difficult to apply to temperature-sensitive gut or synthetic core material. Thus, a need exists for providing a suitable cover material to musical instrument strings having temperature-sensitive gut or synthetic core, as well as a method for applying such a cover in a manner which will not compromise the underlying material.
It is a purpose of the present invention to provide such a cover to a musical instrument string.
It is a further purpose of the present invention to provide an improved string, and particularly a string comprising gut or synthetic material, that maintains close to a conventional lively sound while being resistant to contamination over a longer period of time than conventional strings.
It is a further purpose of the present invention to provide an improved wound string, and particularly a string comprising gut or synthetic material, that is easier and/or more comfortable to play than conventional strings.
It is still another purpose of the present invention to provide an improved wound string, and particularly a string comprising gut or synthetic material, that is less prone to generating unwanted noises when a musician's fingers are moved along the string.
It is still another purpose of the present invention to provide a method for making such a string, and particularly a string comprising gut or synthetic material.
These and other purposes of the present invention will become evident from review of the following description.